The Witness
by SingerMe
Summary: He was only supposed to watch them. **No particular year.**


**The Witness**

I don't own these characters. I just like to spend time with them. No other profit to be had.

 **(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)**L &A**(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)**

Walking down the hall, he watched the people around him. He was always watching them. He knew each one by name and occupation. He knew other things about them as well, things they never suspected.

He knew their likes and their dislikes, their favorite colors and styles and junk food. He even knew their small habits they might not even be aware of themselves.

Take Francine Desmond for instance. There she was, phone to her ear, highly polished and manicured nails typing something onto the computer as she listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. He knew when she was in the office, whether he saw her or not. And more often than not, he knew for how long she was there and whether she wanted to be or not.

He could easily tell by her expression whether things were good or bad. By the looks of things right now, the information she was getting from her contact wasn't good. Quickly, he moved past her desk before she threw the ink pen she was holding tightly in her grip.

Looking to his right, he saw Billy Melrose in his office, chewing on an antacid while swallowing a cup of coffee and reading a report with a frown on his face. The older man's slumped shoulders and furrowed brow told him the Section Chief was concerned about something he was seeing in the report. And he suspected he knew what that something was.

Shaking his head, he pushed on. Looking a little further down, he saw Fred Fielder. That man was not one of the Witness' favorites. The dark haired fop who considered himself in a class with the legendary Scarecrow was in reality a nail biter who thought more of his philodendron then he did the people he spent his working days with. How he became an agent, was anyone's guess. Well, anyone but The Witness. He didn't need to guess. He knew.

Pushing thoughts of Fielder's shortcomings to the side, he studied the way the agent leaned over his desk, staring intently at the file in front of him as he too worked the phone. He, like Desmond and Melrose, was concerned and even a little upset.

"Sad." He thought. Amanda King had been taken by Viktor Karmov, a vengeful KGB operative, and every agent in the place was frantically calling every contact they had to find her. Even Fielder was worried which only served to punctuate the seriousness of the situation.

Moving on, he passed Leatherneck, who uncharacteristically was out of his usual areas of manufacturing and the garage and instead was sitting on a phone at an empty desk, making one call after another, scribbling info onto a pad of paper. His rigid posture and drawn face matched those of most of the other agents around the bullpen.

Shaking his head, he continued on to another section of the bullpen where he stopped and found himself a comfortable place to lean against the wall and study the agent at the corner desk. Tense and agitated, Agent Lee Stetson, aka Scarecrow was raking his hand through his hair and gripping the phone so tightly it was a wonder it wasn't broken in two. He was definitely not happy.

"Alright!" Stetson suddenly yelled into the phone. "I'm on my way."

The Witness stood away from the wall and watched as Stetson grabbed his jacket and hurried from the bullpen towards the elevator without telling anyone he was leaving. The Witness wasted no time in following. Scarecrow was on to something and the watcher needed to be there to see what that something was.

Stetson drove fast but not recklessly and it wasn't any time before he reached his destination. Taking a moment to make sure his gun was loaded and at the ready, he climbed out of his Corvette and crossed swiftly to the warehouse he'd parked in front of. He took no pains to conceal his presence as he ran around his car and boldly went to the door and entered.

Following along, The Witness was impressed with Scarecrow's bold courage as he walked into an unknown situation. Of course The Witness understood the reason for his brashness. He was on a mission, an urgent mission to save a life more precious to him than his own.

"Alright, I'm here!" Stetson yelled when he entered the warehouse and looked around him.

The warehouse was mostly empty but there were a few crates near the back of the wide space. In response to his call, a man stepped out from behind one of those crates, dragging Amanda out with him.

Her clothes were dirty and her hair a tangled mess but she appeared to be unhurt, though it was obvious she was frightened. "Lee." She called out in a trembling voice. "Lee, be careful."

"Shut up." Her captor growled as he pulled her tightly against him, wrapping his left arm around her shoulders. He had a gun in his right hand. "Throw your gun down, Scarecrow." The tall, blonde man shouted as he pointed a gun directly at Amanda's head. "Do it or she dies."

The Witness moved to a place in the warehouse where he could get a closer view of the events taking place in the old building. Settling himself against an empty crate, he crossed his arms against his chest as he took in what was happening before him.

"Let her go, Karmov." Lee made no move to drop his weapon, instead aiming it at his adversary. "I have agents covering all the exits. You have no place you can go." Lee attempted to bluff.

But the blonde KGB agent wasn't buying it. "I know better than that, Scarecrow. I am not so blind. Now throw your gun down or I will not hesitate to kill your little housewife."

Lee and Amanda locked eyes, and The Witness could tell they were carrying on a wordless conversation. He didn't need to have the ability to read their minds to understand what they were saying to each other. Lee was concerned for her, willing to give his own life for hers. She was only worried about him, asking him to save himself if he couldn't save them both.

"Now, Scarecrow!" The man Lee called Karmov screamed as he pressed the gun tighter to Amanda's temple.

"Alright." Lee yelled as he removed his finger from the trigger of his gun and tossed it to the ground. "Now let her go. You have me, you don't need her."

The Witness was fascinated as he stood by and watched. He could see the emotions playing across the stoic American agent's face, but he stood straight and still, unmoving, although he'd just given up his only weapon and perhaps his life for the woman.

"Let her go!" Stetson demanded again.

But the Russian operative wasn't releasing his grip of the too quiet brunette. "No, Scarecrow." He grinned evilly. "I have waited a long time for this. You cost me too much."

"I didn't cost you anything." Lee growled. "You caused the deaths of three of our agents and four of your own through your own arrogance and stupidity."

"NO!" Karmov roared inadvertently moving forward, jerking Amanda forward and causing the gun to rake painfully down the side of her face. "I had a plan. It would've worked. You! You ruined it!"

The Witness took notice of the angry yet controlled expression on Stetson's face and could tell he was worried about Amanda King and what could happen to her if he agitated the Russian any more.

"Okay." Stetson nodded. "Okay, it's my fault if that's the way you see it. So let her go and take your revenge on me. I'm the one you blame. She has nothing to do with it."

"You are right, Scarecrow." The blonde grinned, which The Witness knew did not bode well for Scarecrow or King. Tilting his head in intense interest, he dared to move even closer to the scene so that he could study the expressions of all three of the participants of this drama that was unfolding before him.

"Mrs. King does not have anything to do with this. That is why I will kill her." Karmov moved his left arm further up to encircle Amanda King's neck as he placed the gun flush against her pale temple. "It will hurt you, will it not, if I should kill her? You would be most unhappy. That is what I want. I want you to suffer, Scarecrow. Her death will make you suffer more than your own."

The Witness watched the faces of the two Americans and again he could see that same silent communication taking place between them. They were coming into an agreement on some sort of action and he wanted to be even closer to see exactly what that action would be. Swiftly, he took several steps closer to where he would miss nothing.

As he moved, he noticed the small, almost imperceptible nod given to Stetson by King. He stopped where he was, waiting for what he knew was about to happen.

One more, tiny nod and Amanda suddenly raised her heel clad foot and ground it harshly into the top of the Russian's foot at the same time she pulled her right elbow up and jammed it into his midsection. When Karmov released his tight hold of her, Amanda, with no small amount of effort, pulled free of him and threw herself to the side.

The Witness watched in amazed admiration as Stetson took the opportunity that King had granted him and threw himself forward into a somersault, grabbing his earlier discarded weapon on his way back up. As soon as Amanda King was clear, Stetson fired without hesitation into the chest of the Russian, watching warily as the man fell backwards.

"Lee?" King was just stumbling towards him her eyes on him when another shot rang out and she suddenly stiffened. A look of surprise crossed her face as she stared at Lee just before he crumpled to the ground before her. Their focus had been on each other, not the dying Russian who'd drawn his last breath with that shot.

"Lee!" She screamed again and threw herself down to his side, quickly turning him over. "Oh, God, Lee. Lee!"

Stetson didn't answer. He merely looked up at her with an expression of pure love as he weakly moved his hand up, gently tracing the contour of her chin before his eyes rolled back into his head and his hand dropped. Amanda laid her head on his chest but the reassuring sound of his heartbeat was gone. The only sound that could be heard was the wail of grief coming from the woman beside him.

The Witness stood in stunned silence. He couldn't believe it. The amazing Lee Stetson, Scarecrow, had breathed his last. The Witness could bear to see no more, with a wave of his hand; he turned and removed himself from the scene.

As he left, Amanda felt a small stirring, too small to call a breeze but something that felt instantly cool and refreshing even in these stark circumstances. Prying her eyes from the man whose head now lay in her lap, she looked around her but saw nothing. Looking back down at Lee, her heart pounded furiously in her chest when she saw an amazing sight.

Lee's eyes were now open and he was gazing up at her in confusion. "Amanda? What's wrong?"

"Le… Lee?" She stared at him as though he were a specter come from the grave come to torment her. "Yo… You're alive?"

"Yeah. Of course I am." He answered.

Lee moved to get up but Amanda gently pushed him back down, unable to comprehend all that had just happened but certain she'd just seen Lee Stetson die a moment before.

"No, Lee. Please. You… you were shot. You're… You died, Lee. I felt you leave me. I…"

Lee gently took Amanda's hands away from his shoulders and sat up. "Amanda." He shook his head. "Look at me. I'm okay. I'm not hurt."

Amanda said nothing. She just continued to stare at him as he got to his feet and made his way over to the now dead man and checked him over. It was only when he bent over and his jacket moved that she saw the blood on his shirt front. "Lee, your shirt." She quickly got to her feet and went to him, pulling his jacket back and pointing at the bright red stain.

Lee looked down curiously and quickly unbuttoned his shirt, opening it to reveal a small nick on his chest. Hardly more than a paper cut, it was hard to believe the large amount of blood on his shirt was from that. But upon removing his jacket and shirt he found no other injuries great or small to account for it.

"I don't know, Amanda." He shook his head as he buttoned his shirt back up. "But I'm not hurt anywhere else. Guess I just must've gotten lucky."

Amanda shook her head and leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him. "No, Scarecrow." She breathed. "I did."

While Lee called in to the Agency and he and Amanda waited for help to come, The Witness stood before his superior, his head bowed, waiting.

"You were told to watch them only, were you not?" The tall figure before him finally asked.

"Yes, Sir." He sighed. "Those were my orders."

"But you did not follow them." His superior's voice was not harsh or accusatory.

"I did." The Witness finally raised his head. "I did until the very end. But I… He did not deserve to die that way, Sir. He… he deserved…"

"I am aware of what he deserves and the woman too."

The Witness frowned, uncertain of his superior's meaning. "Sir?"

"The Agent has taken many lives, has he not?" The superior answered with a question. "In fact he took a life today, in your presence."

"Yes, Sir." The Witness answered. "But he had no choice in the matter. He was saving the life of an innocent woman. In fact, he has saved many more than he ever took and he never took any life if there was another option."

His superior clasped his hands together behind his back as he studied his subordinate. "This woman. She is the agent's partner isn't she?"

"Yes, sir." The Witness nodded. "But it doesn't change the fact that she was innocent. She has never taken a life. She does not even carry or want to carry a gun. She has valiantly put her life on the line for him and for others many times. And he has done the same. They did not deserve death, Sir."

"In your opinion." His superior stated rather than asked.

"Yes, Sir." The Witness dropped his head again.

"Good." His superior smiled for the first time causing The Witness to look up. "It just so happens I agree with your opinion, Witness and I agree with your actions. The agent and the woman did not deserve death and I am glad you stepped out of your role as an observer and took the action you did. There will be no punishment for your deeds. I only hope the two you saved, will continue to be worth the gift you risked so much to give them."

"They will, Sir. They will." The Witness smiled as he flapped a gossamer wing and left. He had been given instructions to watch over the pair in his charge, nothing more. But he now understood that there were times, watching was not enough. There were times action had to be taken to protect and to serve. Just like the agent and the woman.

The End


End file.
